


And Nothing Left When That Dream Awake

by marybarrymore



Category: 15th Century CE RPF
Genre: Historically Inaccurate, M/M, Sibling Incest, The author was poor at depicting sex scene so there's little of that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27896653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marybarrymore/pseuds/marybarrymore
Summary: Humphrey never knew what he desired. He thought he must desire something; otherwise what else would he work and toil for. But his desire always lacked a concrete shape. But Harry knew him better than he knew himself, and if Harry said this was not what he desired, then it must be the truth.
Relationships: Henry V of England/Humphrey of Lancaster Duke of Gloucester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	And Nothing Left When That Dream Awake

**Author's Note:**

> This work is 100% historically inaccurate so please do not take it seriously

"My lord of Gloucester," the page said to him, "the king desires your presence."

Humphrey waved his hand and the minstrels stopped immediately. He swallowed the mouthful of grapes before he opened his mouth to inquire further.

"What does my lord the King desires?"

"I do not know, my lord." the page answered obediently, without meeting his gaze.

The king was in his predecessors’ study – now his study. He was still too young to learn how to conceal his emotions, and Humphrey saw a boy with undisguised anger on his face as he entered the room.

"What does my lord require of me?" Humphrey said, with a false smile on his face. Kids were always rebellious, he knew that. He also knew that one has to appease these rebellious kids when they lost their temper. To pet them and soothe them and bring them back to reason. Especially when that raging boy was his lord and master.

The king stared up at him and kicked over the table. He was tender, but with Warwick tutoring him in martial arts since the age of seven, was strong enough to make the table flew a few inches and stopped at Humphrey's feet, narrowly missing him. Humphrey looked at his nephew, and when he spoke again, he took great effort to withhold his anger.

"What misdeeds I have done, that my lord should treat me so?"

"Misdeeds?" The king, for reasons yet unknown to him, screamed in a feminine manner. Humphrey shut his eyes. he couldn't bear to hear people scream, men or women. Jacqueline used to quarrel with him, and she always raised her voice to so high a pitch that his ears hurt and his head ache. But the raging boy opposite him was his nephew and king, so he couldn't slap him and tell him to talk properly as he had done with Jacqueline, nor could he cover his ears and fled the scene with the nearest woman at hand, but have to stand still and endure. The king still screamed at him, his voice a bit unsteady.

“You know full well, Gloucester! Shame! Shame on you! You traitor of knighthood and traitor of the faith!”

This is what happens when you have your child brought up by monks. They cannot even curse properly. Humphrey thought and sighed inwardly.

"Pleases your highness to inform me further. For I know not what I have done to rouse your anger so."

"Further?" The little king shouted, his voice shaking, and picked up a piece of paper from the ground, walked up to him, and thrust it on his face. "This will inform you further!"

Humphrey held it in his hand and took several deep breaths to stop himself from slapping the king in the face, glancing at the crumpled parchment.

"Who gave this to you?" He suddenly felt his mouth dry, and this time it was his voice that shook.

His nephew was standing in front of him, with only an overturned table separating them, its silver-gilt edges broken. It was a present his father received from the Duke of Milan, the famous Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who, like his father, had long parted this world. And it seemed to Humphrey that the present he gave to Henry IV of England would now suffer the same fate. The king looked at him, studying his expression, and lost colour.

"Have you nothing to say?"

He is waiting for me to deny it, Humphrey thought. He’s furious just because he doesn't want to believe it.

"Bedford gave you this." He said calmly, without expecting the king to confirm his suspicion. No one can procure the letter he sent Harry other than this brother of his.

"Have you nothing to say?"

Humphrey glanced at the letter. The words hurt his eyes. The ink on it was beginning to fade. He suddenly felt bored and weary.

"Bedford should have told you when he gave you this," Suddenly he didn't want to deny it. For how could his confession in black and white, written in his own hand, be erased by a simple denial? "Want to hear me tell you again?"

The boy gulped. His expression changed when he looked at him again.

"My father ... you ..." he pointed at Humphrey, shivering from head to toe, looking at him like knowing him for the first time, "you ... How dare you to talk to me of my _saintly_ father! Mirror of all Christian Kings! How dare you to teach me to serve God with ferverence and abstinence like him - is this how _he_ served God?"

"It's nothing to do with Harry," Humphrey argued instinctly, "it's all my-"

"Shut up!"

The king screamed again and Humphrey immediately shut his mouth, his head throbbing with pain. He remembered the dimly lit tent and the snowy night. He was only sending letters newly received from the Council of Constance to the king, but somehow sent away the watchman and stood hesitantly by the couch. His face half-lit by the dim candlelight.

He had believed his concealment flawless. Of course, York had known and his father might have guessed. But his father lied buried in Canterbury and York was dead on the field of Agincourt. Everyone regarded him as the king's most loyal brother, and he himself held the same belief: he hated Burgundy, but Harry demanded it, and he befriended that damn Count of Charolais; he would not choose to marry a woman he had never met, but Harry commanded it, and he meekly sent an envoy to negotiate his marriage with a Princess of Navarre. He wanted to marry, to start a family and have his own career and heir, but Harry denied him that right for some unknown reason, and he docilely devoted himself to Harry’s cause without a word. Oh he loved Harry, but he respected him more, feared him more than he loved him. Aren’t they all? _Belle_ was the only thing that mattered in the world, he thought as he leaned over a woman's delicate breasts, as he held his newborn son in his arms. But then he saw Harry entering the room, and forgot at once about his _belle_ , lifting his face to Harry and showing him the boy in his arms, asked him to name the boy, his bastard son.

"Not bad," Harry replied absently, not even sparing a look to the little thing he clumsily held, "Crumpled, and looked just like you when you were born. Name it whatever you like. I’d rather be your heir’s godfather when you had one."

He thought he resented Harry. He thought as he stood in the darkness of the tent, hearing the wolves howling in the distance. But he loved Harry. It was all very easy for a man to declare his love for someone. It took only a matter of seconds. John of Gaunt saw the bright-eyed heiress of Lancaster in the woods, and swore to wed no one else but she. Harry sat in the Great Hall of Kenilworth and took the portrait of the French princess from Thomas Beaufort, pointed at it and told the peers of England this was the woman he was to marry. He held a doxy of Southwark in his arms and called the name of his eldest brother in a drunken stupor, and scared himself back to his senses. Harry is St. George, Bedford had said, with reverence and admiration in his eyes, an expression fit for a devoted younger brother. He knew he should agree, but he remembered all those wild, chaotic dreams and knew he had crossed the Rubicon. St. George is nothing but soil and clay, he said. Harry is not, Harry is much better. What he left unsaid stuck in his throat, and he covered it up with a cough. St. George was just a clay idol. What was left of it when its harness was removed? Nothing but a common puppet with a hollow expression. But Harry was not. He remembered Harry removing the harness in front of him, slender, graceful and dashing. The monastery cell was full of steam, the curtain half lifted around the tub. Harry waved him forward, with a glass of wine and a map on the small table at hand, a servant kneeling beside him, the olive soap in his hands whirling, from the ankles, upwards, upwards. Humphrey, Harry asked him, can you handle Cherbourg? His eyes chased the servant's hands. Certainly, Harry. He said, not knowing what he was promising.

And now he looked down at Harry, and realised that love and hate were both pushed aside by the sin and desire from the fall of man. He wanted to kiss Harry. To tear off his mask of calm self-possession. He loved seeing the flash of panic in the dark eyes of his omnipotent brother. It was a good thing, for it reminded him that Harry was mortal, neither the God of War nor Mars’ minion; neither St George nor the scourge of God. He thought he must have heard Beelzebub murmuring in his ear, urging him to act. He leaned down to kiss Harry, feeling as if in a dream, imagining no one would ever know. The next thing he knew he was thrown against the couch, his arms in the firm grip of another man, his spine hit against the couch, almost brought him to tears. Harry's arm laid on his neck, suffocating him. He lifted his eyes to see Harry's face within arm's reach, but Harry lowered his gaze, and he couldn't see the look in Harry's eyes.

"Humphrey, is this what you desire?"

Harry kissed him.

His mind went blank and for a moment he stopped breathing, even wanted to slap himself awake. But this was not another of his incestuous dreams. Harry had indeed kissed him in the royal tent, not dabbling and thievish like his unsuccessful try, but all vigorous and commanding, plunged into his maw. The watchmen stood shivering in the snow, the skinny wolves howling in the abandoned village, and his brother, calm to the point of emotionless, was kissing him.

He came to his senses after a moment of blankness and responded to Harry with all the passion he could muster. He thought he must be ogrish, with eyes blood red and expression hideous, but the tent was dim, the watchman was out, and Harry would not care. He felt a hand moving over him, a hand he knew, slender and strong, a little colder than he remembered it, but perhaps that was an illusion caused by his boiling blood. He didn't need Philtres to ignite his desire, the feeling of that hand alone lit the fire of love within him, burning from his blood to his marrow and his brain. His brain was numb and his limbs lit with fire. Berthold said that evil thought is a crime, pleasure is a sin and the wrath of God is upon sinful mortals. Considering all the commandments of the Lord he had broken, he must burn in the sulfurous fires of hell for all eternity - but if this was the price he had to pay, he thought it was a fair bargain. The sound of pain and comfort escaping his lips, suppressed by yet another kiss. The moans of passion melted in his mouth; the forbidden fruit of madness rolled over the floor; and the Father in Hell’s name hallowed be. The world was silent. He could only hear the heavy breathing of himself and Harry. The snowstorm outside seemed to have ceased, or perhaps not, but he could hear the howling of neither wind nor wolves.

"It's just my own wishful thinking," he told Harry's son, "Your father served God with ferverence and abstinence. I did not lie to you. "

He had lain on Harry's couch, all wet and covered with sweat, with one arm hooked around Harry's shoulder. He had almost drifted off in this position, a secret part of his mind kept claiming that this was just another of his wild, dissipated dreams.

Until Harry pushed him away.

Harry got up slowly, dressed and put on his cloak, walked to the middle of the tent with his back to him, seeming weak and desolate in the candlelight. Humphrey stayed where he was, leaning on his elbow, looking at Harry’s shadow on the ground. Beelzebub in its thousands different shapes chattering in his head, and the snowstorm outside so fierce that he could barely hear Harry's words in the howling of the blizzard. What was done today must be undone. Harry said. Humphrey, leave.

He threw himself at Harry's feet and begged him, knowing that Harry didn't mean to have him leave the tent when he commanded him to leave. He vowed he would forget - he never kept his vow; he swore he wouldn't speak of it again - he wrote letter after letter, begging Harry; he swore he would harbour no evil thoughts no more - he in his letters begged Harry to take pity on his love. But Harry was unmoved. Perhaps Harry always knew he would not keep his promises, since Harry knew him better than he knew himself. I shall marry the Princess of France, Gloucester, and any hint of a scandal will ruin us both. What happened tonight never happened and must not happen again. you will return to England to take custody of the realm, and Bedford in your stead shall come to France. Harry said, and began to open the letters he had brought into the tent. He knelt on the floor and grabbed Harry's cloak and begged, but Harry was unmoved. He babbled incoherently, and Harry, holding Bishop Beaufort’s letter in his hand, listened silently, without sparing him a look. He heard a cock crow outside, but no sunlight dared creep into the tent, and the cock stopped abruptly, perhaps became the prey of a wandering wolf. Harry prised his fingers one by one. His thumb rested on the indent of his chin, lifting his face, condescending him.

"Humphrey," he heard Harry sigh softly, "this is not what you desire."

Humphrey never knew what he desired. He thought he must desire something; otherwise what else would he work and toil for. But his desire always lacked a concrete shape. But Harry knew him better than he knew himself, and if Harry said this was not what he desired, then it must be the truth. What he desired was mundane enjoyments, earthly goods and worldly fame. You're no such man to give all these up for me, Humphrey. Harry gave the order and he always had to obey, so he left. His books became the envy of England; the people of London cheered him as "The Good Duke"; the scholars of Italy praised him as “Immortalis Princeps”; he was Lord Protector of England and Chief Chancellor of the King; he divorced his wife for a better one; he had children, son and daughter; his land stretched across the Welsh marches; he taught the king to ride and to rule and treated him as his heir. He thought that was all there was. That was what his goal, his ambition and his desire should be. But as he stood in front of the furious king, clutching in his hand the letter he had written in his reckless youth, he finally got the answer.

Harry was wrong. Harry never knew him.

He never gets what he desires.

**Author's Note:**

> I get the inspiration from Bedford's second return to England, upon which Gloucester, who used to have a cordial relationship with Henry VI and had the power to direct Henry's policies, mysteriously lost the king's favour and never managed to regain it. Apart from that the rest of the work is pure nonsense ... I mean fiction.
> 
> Berthold was Berthold von Freiburg, the author of _Summa Confessorum_ (1294-96).


End file.
